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One kind of modal word is the modal verb (should, can, might, and ought, as well as oblige, need, and require). Other types of modal words in English include modal adjectives (likely, probable, necessary), modal adverbs (probably, perhaps, certainly), modal prepositions (despite, unless, if), and modal nouns (possibility, probability, certainty).
Intensives generally function as adverbs before the word or phrase that they modify. For example, bloody well, as in "I will bloody well do it," is a commonly used intensive adverb in Great Britain. [1] Intensives also can function as postpositive adjectives. An example in American English today is "the heck", e.g. "What the heck is going on here
There are two predicates in each of the verb chains in the sentences. Do-support is needed when the higher of the two is negated; it is not needed to negate the lower nonfinite predicate. For negated questions, see the questions section above. For negated elliptical sentences, see the elliptical sentences section below.
English word order has moved from the Germanic verb-second (V2) word order to being almost exclusively subject–verb–object (SVO). The combination of SVO order and use of auxiliary verbs often creates clusters of two or more verbs at the center of the sentence, such as he had hoped to try to open it. In most sentences, English marks ...
A pro-verb is a type of anaphora that falls within the general group of word classes called pro-forms (pro-verb is an analog of the pronoun that applies to verbs instead of nouns [2]). Many languages use a replacement verb as a pro-verb to avoid repetition: English "do" (for example, "I like pie, and so does he"), French: faire, Swedish: göra. [2]
An auxiliary verb (abbreviated aux) is a verb that adds functional or grammatical meaning to the clause in which it occurs, so as to express tense, aspect, modality, voice, emphasis, etc. Auxiliary verbs usually accompany an infinitive verb or a participle, which respectively provide the main semantic content of the clause. [1]
Differences in scale are important to this meaning: for example, English grammar could describe those rules followed by every one of the language's speakers. [2] At smaller scales, it may refer to rules shared by smaller groups of speakers. A description, study, or analysis of such rules may also be known as a grammar, or as a grammar book.
A heteronym (also known as a heterophone) is a word that has a different pronunciation and meaning from another word but the same spelling. These are homographs that are not homophones . Thus, lead ( /ˈlɛd/ the metal) and lead ( /ˈliːd/ a leash) are heteronyms, but mean ( /ˈmin/ average) and mean ( /ˈmin/ intend) are not, since they are ...